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Race Car Birthday Cake

The saying ‘it never rain, but it pours’ has never felt so appropriate for me as it has this last month. While I’m more often approached for quotes, it is actually quite rare that someone (outside my family, at least) commissions me to make a cake for them. But this last month has been nothing but commissions. I’ve spent all my spare time in the kitchen staring at cake and icing, crafting things of someone elses imagination. It’s most of the reason I’ve been so terrible at getting back to all your lovely comments and emails lately, something I keep promising myself every morning I will catch up on.

I’ve had to set aside my list of fan art cakes and such I have planned, but it’s been a fun change. It’s wonderful when someone entrusts you with the task of bringing to life the cake that exists in their minds eye, something that it for an important occasion, something to share with all the people they hold dear. It’s equal parts nerveracking and I never quite stop stressing until I see their overjoyed expressions, and even then I still panic. I’ve got a heap of cakes to show you guys over the coming weeks, alongside the usual recipe posts, so here’s the first one.

The family this cake is for is one I’ve made cakes for before. They were one of the first people to ever commission a cake for me. For their son’s first birthday I made them this jungle cake for their private celebration and this one for the larger birthday party. This year he was turning three and they approached me about making another cake for him. This time he was old enough that they were able to ask him what he wanted, and he answered straight away: a race car.

I started off with a giant stack of chocolate cakes and ended up with something that vaguely represented a car, as well as a giant stack of cake scraps.

I covered it with a crumb coat of ganache, then added a thicker layer of whipped chocolate ganache on top to complete the over all shape.

While that was drying I started on the racetrack cake board the car would eventually be moved to. It made me feel like playing race car games on my super nintendo.

The grass texturing was certainly the most tedious bit of the whole thing.

The brief for the race car was for a simple yellow car with black racing stripes. On the front and back they wanted number plates with Viyasan, the birthday boy’s name, on it.

On the sides of the race car they wanted the number 3.

This was the first car cake I’ve gotten to do so it was lots of fun. They told me afterwards that they thought it was amazing and everyone loved it so that was really exciting to hear!